Lethe
by DragonyPhoenix
Summary: drinking away the memories


After she'd woken, curled up next to him in the car, she'd struggled to free herself. It was dark by then, well past midnight and he pulled over, next to a field, to let her have a bit of a run. He knew she wouldn't accept it right away.

"Over here, pet. Come to Daddy," he yelled as she got too close to the trees. Not like she could actually lose him in the woods but he didn't fancy having to hunt her down.

Drusilla flashed into vamp face and hissed. Spike's face hardened as he strode towards her. "No need to be like that. It's back to you and me, the way it's supposed to be, so no going back and running after Angel, got it?"

Drusilla pouted. "Daddy's doubly departed."

"Departed? You mean the Slayer actually sent him to hell?"

"Body and soul, ashes, ashes, they all fell down He'll be ever so angry when he trips over the river and through the woods back to Grandmama's house." Frowning she thought about Grandmother and why she was no longer with them. She couldn't loose Spike as well. Her Daddy loved her but he wasn't very good at taking care of her.

"Well, well," Spike crowed as he grabbed Drusilla by the waist and drew her to him. "We should celebrate."

"Oh, yeah," Drusilla agreed as she swayed from side to side, leaving kisses on Spike's right cheek and then on his left, right and left, inching her way closer and closer to his lips until she was swaying before him. "Be in me," she whispered, slowly raising her hand.

Spike grabbed her wrist in an iron grip. "None of that. If you don't behave, Daddy will have to spank."

Drusilla flinched when Spike referred to himself as Daddy. "Is that the way of it, then?" he asked from behind eyes as cold as the sea in November.

"My beautiful boy betrayed Daddy," she replied, her eyes darting around, searching for Miss Edith. Spike had never been so angry with her before and she didn't know how to handle it but Miss Edith had been left behind in Sunnydale. She sent a silent supplication out to the stars above her, to the dirt below, to anyone or anything that could help save her Spike.

Shedding his human face, Spike bit into her neck and fed deeply. Savaging her skin as he broke free, he whispered, "Who am I?"

"Daddy," she replied while listening to the stars, who, in answer to her call, were whispering, whispering, telling her how to fix it so that, when Daddy did come back, they could be a family again.

* * *

In a playground, just after dusk, Drusilla had found the sweetest little girl, abandoned by her family. Forgotten and left all alone. If not forever, at least for long enough. "Don't you have anybody to walk you home? Where's your Mummy and Daddy?"

Too protected all her life to know when to be afraid, the girl replied, "Oh, I live just up the street and I'm a big girl now. I'm old enough to walk myself home."

"My Mummy and Daddy never let me walk home alone, even when I was much older than you are now. Do you know where they are?" Drusilla asked, pushing at a swing so it started swaying back and forth.

"Your parents?" the girl asked, not really certain what Drusilla was talking about. "No, where?"

"Dead," Drusilla replied, slipping into vamp face.

The girl screamed and ran. Drusilla stepped out in front of her at the other end of the swings. She darted off to the monkey bars but Drusilla beat here there as well. She turned and ran again. Drusilla grabbed her as she dashed past the slides. "Nighty-night dear."

"Dru," Spike said, stepping out of the shadows. "What did I tell you?"

"Daddy gets to eat first," she replied sulkily, knowing that Spike was watching her carefully for any signs of disobedience. The stars had told her to bide her time, to wait until Spike trusted her again but it was taking a very long time and it was very, very difficult.

"Good girl," Spike replied before biting into the neck and draining the girl until she was unconscious. As he let Drusilla finish her off, he licked blood off his lips and said, "Good choice, pet. I can almost taste her innocence."

* * *

The stars sang to her. The moon was in the seventh house. The planets had finally aligned. "It's time."

"Time for what luv?"

They told her what to say. "The Slayer has come to us."

"Buffy's here in Cleveland? What the hell for?" Spike asked.

"Not Buffy, the other one, the defender of the faith. Her boss sent her on a little job."

"The Council sent a Slayer here? Anything to do with us, pet?" Spike asked nonchalantly.

"No, her Daddy's a demon now," she stopped and looked puzzled for a moment, "or not quite yet," and then added, with a smile, "but he's well on his way."

"The second Slayer is working for our side?" Spike asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You should kill her," Drusilla suggested.

Spike shrugged. "Why would I want to kill her if she's not about to mess with us?"

"You'd be the first. No vampire has ever killed three Slayers before."

"Really?" Spike replied, looking interested as he lit up a cigarette. "Know that for a fact, do you?"

"Miss Edith told me, ever so long ago."

Spike gave her a nod and asked, "Where's she going to be?"

* * *

The fight with the Slayer and then their subsequent lovemaking had worn him out. Spike hadn't noticed but he'd dropped his guard, just a bit but it was enough for Drusilla's purposes.

In the aftermath, she hummed a little tune that trickled in like a fine mist, forming little dewdrops in his mind. She continued humming. Dewdrops coalesced into small streams but, by then, he was under her spell, willingly drinking in her song as it became a raging torrent, washing away all the memories.

"William," she whispered to her slumbering Childe.

"Wha?" As he took in his surroundings, he grabbed the sheet up over himself in one jerky motion.

Drusilla smiled. It had worked just as the stars had said it would. "What's the last thing you remember?"

Sensing his Sire nearby calmed him. William gazed off into the distance to think over her question. "A dark alley. You bit me," he accused as his hand searched for torn flesh on a neck that had healed over a century ago.

"Do you know who I am?"

He dropped his gaze momentarily in thought before raising them as he tentatively asked, "Sire?"

Reaching out her arms, Drusilla replied, "Come to Mummy love. You have so much to learn."


End file.
